Columns

The workings of a political party hack’s mind are always fascinating. Sometimes they seem to think their party is more important than their state, or the United States itself. It’s even more fascinating when a party hack’s thinking ends up in print.
That happened last week.

As more information surfaces, the severe mismanagement and “lack of integrity” within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health system has grown increasingly clear. A nationwide audit of access and wait times at 731 VA facilities was released just days ago. The results were highly alarming and only added to my serious concerns about veterans’ access to medical care. The audit found that more than 57,000 veterans have waited at least 90 days for their first appointment at a VA facility.

The central issue at the June 9 Board of Supervisors / Planning Board’s public hearing was that zoning regulations effectively blocked an entire industry – Confined Animal Feeding Operations -- from doing business in Bedford County.

While one Virginia politician was making national headlines last week, another one lit a fire in the same kind of partisan fight that had brought down the first one.
Eric Cantor and Phil Puckett may not know each other, but they found themselves front-line players in the same fight: the ideological battle between the few common sense Republicans left, and the “tea party” fanatics who imagine themselves on some holy mission, like the Crusaders of old.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

These anniversaries, especially the five-year anniversaries, of D-Day always remind me of why the National D-Day Memorial is vital. Folks often talk about how nice it is for the D-Day veterans to be able to see it, but its mission — remember, it’s a memorial — is to make sure we remember all those guys who never lived to see it.

Last week, we commemorated the 70th Anniversary of the largest seaborne invasion in our history, which took place on D-Day. In honor of the anniversary of this fateful day, I participated in the National D-Day Memorial Commemoration in Bedford to commemorate the Anniversary of the Allied invasion of occupied France.

In lockstep with regulatory expansion in nearly every part of our economy, on June 2nd the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) put forth yet another rule, this time attacking affordable and reliable energy. Once again, we see the Executive Branch bypassing Congress to enact far-reaching legislative policies that would hit families, small businesses, and manufacturers in the pocketbook.

The Virginia Republican Party nominated Ed Gillespie on Saturday to run against incumbent Democrat Mark Warner for the U.S. Senate.
Gillespie easily dispatched two lesser rivals, and was nominated on the first ballot. Newspapers reported that even though some 4,200 delegates had registered, less than 3,000 of that showed up and voted.

I never see Rick Howell’s Liberal Agenda before I write my column, so anything that looks like coordination between the two is not due to deliberate planning. Sometimes it’s due to two political minds running in the same gutter. In other cases, it’s pure coincidence. Last week’s Bedford Bulletin witnessed one of those coincidences.